My name is Thomas and last year I finally proved to my friends exactly how scary "a sighting" can be. One Friday night me and four of my friends went out to a party, during the night I was mentioning about a ghost story that as real as it could be scared my entire grade 6 class many years ago...I was twelve and my class went to a camp during the year it was designed for group orienteering and discussion, two weeks before I left I had done a little research, the location is a community called Sheldon Valley with is north of Toronto Ontario Canada.

A long time ago when settlers were travelling looking for new land this portion was a great place, it had a water source with has trout and salmon every year to this day. There was a builder whose name was Sheldon Kennedy he was a carpenter and architect and it was his job to form a team to build homes for the settlers, but he had an idea instead of building individual dwellings he constructed a lodge to hold every family, it is the lodge that people stay when they go to the valley, the first winter was vicious but no one died. The next year (late 1700's) during the late spring the daughter of a builder went to the "separately build" home of Lord Mackenzie and swore that she had been raped by Sheldon Kennedy earlier that morning, word got out and suddenly all respect for Sheldon was lost, two weeks past and Sheldon mysteriously disappeared and his location could never be discovered...

Then one night he returned to the lodge but something seemed wrong he didn't say a word, but instead just walked directly to his room. Recorded in an actual diary by a 10 year old boy at the time explains the gruesome discovery. This boy walked through the west wing of the lodge, it was dark and the small light from his candle wasn't helping his sight, he walked three doors from the stairs that led down to the lobby; that was Sheldon's room, he knocked but there was only silence, he waited a few moments and knocked once more, again no response. He cautiously opened the door thinking that maybe Sheldon never returned to his room after all.. instead when he looked towards the window he was struck by a frightening sight, before dropping his candle the poor boy stared into the eyes of a hanging man, the look of a lost soul, Sheldon Kennedy had hung himself on a date around the first week of April. He couldn't handle the accusations of the worker's daughter...

When in Sheldon Valley I asked the staff if the lodge was haunted only one man (the cook) mentioned that stories had got around not just about the lodge but even the land and the stream where the rape was to have happened that spring, all the others ignored me and the day after the books in the lobby disappeared. There is one night that my friends still talk about, we had groups of six to a room, the boys on one side of the lodge and the girls on the other, I and my friends choose room 6 in was three from the stairs in the west wing that led to the lobby.

That night I remembered the diary entry and the room where Sheldon had hung himself but I didn't worry... around midnight the room got very cold, and that was odd because that time in April it is very cold at all, the atmosphere suddenly changed I would exhale and I could see my breath. Then it happened the room had three bunks and it front of me a friend of mine was sleeping on the top of one bunk, I turned and a portion of the darkness had been replaced with a white light that had a reflection of blue, the poor kid was picked up from his bed by an unknown source and thrown to the floor, at that time we all went completely crazy, we were screaming and yelling and trying desperately to get out of the room.

The light switch didn't work and the door wouldn't open, almost like it was locked; that never made sense because the doors never had locks... I banged on the door and continued to scream for a teacher on hall duty to help us. The teacher opened the door and turned the light on as if nothing was wrong but the room was still cold he asked why we didn't open the door, but only a few seconds before it appeared locked. He then complained about the cold and went to the window thinking it was open but he passed by a vent and heat was coming up meaning the room should have been warm, we left the room and went into the lounge and sat, that night all thirty students were woken by our screams and asked for an explanation, I told the story of Sheldon Kennedy and about how his ghost was in that room.

The only problem was that his spirit can travel to three key locations around the lodge, 1 the actual lodge, 2 the stream and 3 the Mackenzie house... Still to the this day because of my experience students go the valley not just for three days as a school trip but because they want to see the ghost that has now become famous... After the party we all returned to my friends house and sat in the living room, after about twenty minutes I felt a little cold, I hadn't been drinking that much and I wasn't really cold, it was a shake almost like I could sense something...

I asked my friend if he had ever seen anything in his home but the other guys thought I was joking suddenly I looked towards a door that led to his basement and after a few moments a figure of a girl about 12 walked through the door and turned facing me, she had a smile on her face and pointed to the door almost as if giving me a message, when she turned I realized her cause of death, she had been stabbed numerous times and then marks in her neck showed she had been strangled. The next morning I mentioned this to my friends and asked about the fact that she pointed to the door...

After many minutes of silence the boy who lives in the house told me the reason why, about ten years before he moved into the home there was a family, a couple who had a daughter, the uncle had been baby-sitting one night when the couple had gone away for the weekend, the uncle for no known reason stabbed his niece while she was sleeping that didn't kill her, but when she woke in pain he strangled her to death. He buried her body in the basement and when the parents returned he made up a story, it was a few years later when they dug up the basement they found the skeleton of the girl. I believe her ghost remained in the home until someone believed in her, I felt her pain that night and was the only one to experience the strange chill and to see the ghost, but when she pointed to the door and I had asked my friend if a girl had been killed he stayed quiet for those few days...

That's how I made new believers out of my friends, two different experiences over eight years... His house is no longer haunted, I put the ghost of the girl in peace.